Pandora Goes Universal on Windows 10 for PCs and Phones

Pandora Goes Universal on Windows 10 for PCs and Phones

Pandora has long offered a great Windows phone app. But with the release of Windows 10, the music streaming streaming service is going all-in, and has released a universal app for PCs/tablets and phones.

In keeping with my policy of not wasting your time, I don’t cover every single Windows 10 app release (or update, spare me). But this is a big one.

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With Microsoft not providing decent music discovery or radio capabilities in Groove, users have two choices: They can simply run into the waiting arms of Spotify—not a bad option, frankly—or they can use another app/service for music discovery and radio. And Pandora is among the best. As important, it’s also the most popular. Which means that a bet on Pandora is a good one.

Pandora actually updated its Windows phone app to a universal Windows 10 app a few weeks back. But today, the firm has delivered a universal app for Windows 10 for PCs and tablets too. And if I’m not mistaken, this marks the first time in eons that Pandora has delivered a modern Windows application of any kind: It’s Pandora One desktop application is an AIR app, if you can believe that. (Most people just use the web client, which works well enough.)

We use Pandora here at Chez Thurrott. In fact, we actually pay for Pandora One, which provides higher quality audio streaming, more skips, and, of course, no advertising. At $60 a year, it’s a good value, and my wife in particular is a fan of the service and the primary user.

Anyway, Windows 10.

In Windows 10 app form, Pandora nicely adapts to the device you’re using. On the phone, it’s a clean little app, with a nice Now Playing view and list-based access to your stations.

phone

On PCs, it adopts a grid-based station view where each station provides nice album art.

my-stations-pc

The Now Playing view of course takes better advantage of the onscreen real estate. And you can swipe down to see lyrics (nice!) and other information about the track and artist.

now-playing-pc

As you should expect, both apps provide the full Pandora experience, with ratings (thumbs up and thumbs down) and station creation and editing capabilities. It also supports a dynamic live tile on both platforms.

In short, looking good.

You can download Pandora for Windows 10 from the Windows Store. It’s free.

 

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